Oakland: The Panthers' Lost Leader

The Panthers' Lost Leader

It was not surprising that Huey P. Newton ended the way he did: lying in a pool of blood on a sidewalk in a crack-infested Oakland neighborhood with three bullets in his head. For much of his 47 years, Newton had preached and practiced violence as a necessary means of self-defense for blacks in urban America. He will be remembered most as the co-founder of the Black Panther Party, enthroned in a rattan chair, wearing a black beret, with a rifle in one hand and a spear in the other.